How effective is this GPU

[originunkn0wn]

Hello community merry christmas !

I was wondering how well you think the ATI HD 4670 1gig will perform for games. Also, how many years do you think I would get out of this video card before I would need to upgrade it?

The games I want to play now include WoW, Dragon Age Origins, Mass Effect 1,2, Oblivion, etc.

But I would also like it to be usefull in the future as well.

Thank you.

 

[shubham1401]

Hi.And Merry Christmas to you too.

HD 4670 performs well for games at 1280X1024.1gig of memory is a waste on that card as it is not as fast to utilize whole 1GB.
So get the 512MB version for cheaper.

That card will serve you well for 1-1.5 yrs(Just an estimate . Can't give any proof).

 

[rockyjohn]

How long it will last you depends in part on what settings you want to play at and how fast you might want to move to higher settings or getting a larger monitor (assuming you have only the 1280x1024).

It was one of the special items (out of all PC components) that were listed on Tom's Holiday Buyer's Guide 2008

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i7-x58,2087.html

Here's a review of the card from another respected source, although note that it is a year old - but this is still considerated a good card in its range:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3405

If you have not looked at the THG graphics charts, its an excellent place to see what a card can do in select games with different settings and monitors. I did an extract showing the 4670 and a card a step higher. the 9600 GT.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-graphics-charts-2009/compare,1195.html?prod%5B2473%5D=on&prod%5B2457%5D=on

Also, if you are not familiar with the THG report recommending what cards to buy at a series of budget levels then you might also want to review it (it is generally updated montly as new cards are released):

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-310-5970,2491.html

While it takes a little time, I am sure you can see how you can use the last two items above to focus in on the card that best meets your budet level and game requirements.

 

[originunkn0wn]

thank you for your responses.

rockyjohn thank you for posting those links for me its very helpful.

 

[originunkn0wn]

for the processor I was aiming at the t9600 2.8ghz. with 4 gigs ram.

im wondering how High I should go with a gpu. I want to get a really good card, but I dont want to pay premium cost because its still the new.

there should be some sort of sweet spot between cost and performance. the t9600 seems to be at that sweet spot nearest I can tell, but im clueless with graphics cards.

anyone know what gpu is well priced for its performance, still being as new as possible?

 

[originunkn0wn]

PS. I really dont know what resolution I would play at. What resolution would be a HD 17.3 inch monitor. Or an 18? Or is it the same? A friend of mine has an 18" laptop and its glorious looking so im pretty keen to get the same size.

Sorry for my newbness.

 

[JonathanDeane]

PS. I really dont know what resolution I would play at. What resolution would be a HD 17.3 inch monitor. Or an 18? Or is it the same? A friend of mine has an 18" laptop and its glorious looking so im pretty keen to get the same size.

Sorry for my newbness.

Well do you know if your monitor will be an LCD or a Tube type?

The reason I ask is that LCD displays work best at a specific resolution.

An example is mine thats is a little better then 720P (1368X768) So I run all my games at that resolution and I use a Radion 4870 with 1GB. Works great at that resolution and everything is pretty

If you use a lower resolution for your games they still look ok on newer LCD's but you can tell its not running at its best.

I hope some of my rambling post has made some sense and maybe offered some help lol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/720p

If you use an older tube type of display they can change resolutions and the effect of changing resolution is far less noticeable then on an LCD.

 

[HansVonOhain]

You are saying that you are using the laptop, which may be impossible to upgrade the graphics card because they are usually soldered onto the motherboard.

 

[rockyjohn]

Are you talking about desktop or laptop?

The graphics card you originally listed is for a desktop while the processor you listed is from a laptop.

Some laptop cards have names similar to the desktop card. but they run slower - they are not as powerful. Also some laptop cards actually share memory with the CPU, while in the desktop graphics cards have their own memory.

For a desktop monitor, 21" seems to be the most popular right now and prices are reasonable because of demand - but there is a wide range in quality. You can also get 19" ones if the budget does not allow bigger, or even 17".

So are we talking laptop or desktop? Laptops also cost considerable more than desktops for the same performance.

 

[croc]

Confused, I am!

 

[originunkn0wn]

My Apologies guys.

I do mean for laptops. As you say I have put in the wrong name for the HD 4670. I meant the mobile version of it.

I bascially want a laptop that I will not have to upgrade for 3-5 years (if that's even possible), and that is not at a premium price right now. There is usually a linear progression of cost vs power until you suddenly jump in cost for a little bit of extra power. I'm looking for the sweet spot right before the major jump in cost for only a small gain in power.

I definitely do not want a video card that will use shared memory. My understanding is that is not ideal for running demanding games.

I want to be able to run games like Mass Effect 2, Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, Risen, Oblivion, WoW, Halo, Fallout 3 all in high settings fluently. And then have room for future games to come out and be able to play them without issues.

Keeping cost under control my current understanding places me in:

T9600 - 2.8ghz cpu (or an i7?)
4 gigs 1066 ram
Nvidea 260m 1gig

Is that enough? Or is there a more cost effective solution?

 

[JonathanDeane]

lol croc I think I may be confused too, but thats part of the fun of not being on the phone with the person your helping.

One thing I remember about tech support over the phone was being able to pick up subtle clues. Two people can say the exact same sentence to me and I can get different information out of them lol

Maybe this would be easy with some sort of live video forum hmm yeah that would be cool (except the nudity that could be cool but 99% of the time probably not... lol)

I remember quality control asking me questions like "How did you know this customers issue????" I would tell them to play it back and explain that the customer mentioned a symptom. They would have to listen to the call 2-3 times before they would hear what I heard the first time through lol I often found myself thinking "I fixed the issue with the customers machine in less time then it took you to figure out how I did it...."

I never clued them in that like an actual medical Dr. that sometimes you may not know the exact cause of an issue but you have an idea of where to start looking and what to try. IE if step one does not fix the issue move on to step two.

sometimes you just provide as much help as you can and pray its the right kind of help lol

Edit: To the OP you may be able to upgrade your graphics, but expect to pay an arm and a leg IF its possible. The key word is IF....


My opinion with Laptops is that they are handy for portable computing or watching a movie or surfing the web all portable like. Games on a laptop.... well if I was a multi millionaire and could afford to buy THE best laptop every year or so then yeah go for it.

If your looking to upgrade a laptop then I suspect your wanting stretch your dollar so probably not the person with a ton of disposable cash.... and in the case I would say spend the money on a desktop machine, keep your laptop for all the things above and some light games (its still pretty decent I guess...)

Note that its all my opinion and you can tell me to stuff it where the sun don't shine, I won't get mad lol

 

[JonathanDeane]

Accidental double post.

 

[rockyjohn]

My apologies. I guess I should have noticed what forum I wandered into and I did not.

I am going to bow out as I know little about laptops. While I have a simple Toshiba that is several years old, I do most of my work on a desktop, although I assume that not too many years from now most everything will be laptops.

I would like to leave you with two thoughts:

First, just reiterating what I said above about a laptop graphics card not being near as fast as its desktop namesake. And I have no idea where you find laptop graphics charts. If anyone does, I woud like to know for future reference. I wish THG devoted some space to them as I would like to learn more.

Second, originunkOwn, be aware, although you probably already are, that since graphics cards have voracious appetites for power, the battery life on your laptop drops quickly as you increase graphics power.

Finally, since I just got OP's name, let me ask, where do you come from?
Amazing how that capital "O" misdirects the mind, or at least my mind.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

A good gaming laptop is gonna cost you $2-3k

I'd suggest a Clevo model. if you are thinking "I never heard of them", well then you'd be surpised to know that 98% of the brands you ever heard of don't actually make their laptops

* Quanta sells to (among others) HP/Compaq, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Fujitsu, Acer, NEC, Gateway and Lenovo/IBM - note that Quanta is currently (as of August, 2007) the largest manufacturer of notebook computers in the world.
* Compal sells to Toshiba, HP/Compaq, Acer, and Dell.
* Wistron (former manufacturing & design division of Acer) sells to HP/Compaq, Dell, IBM, NEC, Acer, and Lenovo/IBM.
* Flextronics (former Arima Computer Corporation notebook division) sells to HP/Compaq, NEC, and Dell.
* ECS sells to IBM, Fujitsu, and Dell.
* Asus sells to Apple (iBook), Sony, and Samsung.
* Inventec sells to HP/Compaq, Toshiba, and BenQ.
* Uniwill sells to Lenovo/IBM and Fujitsu.
* Clevo sells or has sold to Sager, VoodooPC, Falcon Northwest, Eurocom, Alienware, WidowPC and other boutique brands

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=91510

Laptops can be "portables" where they used hi power desktop components or true traveling laptops with mobile CPU's and GFX cards where you can get 90 minutes or more. I'd suggest something like this:

http://www.pro-star.com/index.cfm?mainpage=productdetail&model=W870CU

I'd customize it to include

IC Diamons TIM
320 GB 7200 rpm HD
4 GB RAM

which puts you at about $2k w/o an OS.